


Staging A Drama

by berlynn_wohl



Series: Oh, Doctor Watson! [2]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Anal Sex, First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Massage, Medical Kink, Multiple Orgasms, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prostate Massage, Roleplay, Virgin Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 08:12:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl
Summary: Holmes requests the medical expertise of Dr. Watson once again. Watson is slightly baffled, but amenable.





	Staging A Drama

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to "A Serious Condition," though I wouldn't say it's strictly necessary to have read that one.

In those days, more than ever, I so enjoyed any opportunity to while away a quiet evening with Holmes in our Baker Street lodgings. It had long been desirable for me, my nerves shaken as they were by the war, to have a companion who preferred quiet contemplation and stimulating discussion to carousing and argument, but since our return from Athelden Manor, our being alone together had taken on a new intimacy. For me, at least: since that evening, Holmes had not approached me for another encounter of that nature. Nonetheless, having known him in that way would forever grace our companionship with a patina of warm affection...and perhaps just a hint of smugness on my part, I must confess.

This particular evening, I was perusing the latest _British Medical Journal_ , which had a fascinating article about the new developments in antitoxins, while Holmes was hunched over his hopelessly cluttered desk, engaged in one of his rare but frenzied updates to his commonplace books. Though we hardly looked at each other the whole evening, the scene was so splendidly calm and cosy, there was only one thing I could think of that might improve it.

It was nearing the small hours, and I was beginning to nod, when Holmes pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up. I could hear one or two soft pops as his spine straightened, and he placed both his hands over the small of his back, groaning, “I find it a source of intense dismay that you, my dear friend, must witness me slowly but inevitably becoming a feeble old man.”

“Nonsense,” I said, “you’re as spry as the day I met you. Though I suppose your posture could stand some improvement...”

Holmes huffed. “And I’m sure that next you will say that I would do well to pay more frequent visits to a physician, who can evaluate all my bodily flaws and lecture me about my terrible habits.”

I was, in fact, _not_ about to say that, for I knew it would do no good. But he was now turned so as to face me directly, and when I looked up at him, he had raised one eyebrow at me, seemingly prompting me to say something. Something about doctors, and how he should be examined by them.

 _Oh._ So our tryst at Athelden was not to be an isolated incident.

“Certainly,” I ventured, “it would not harm you to undergo a complete and thorough physical examination. If you like, I can refer you to a colleague of mine, who I’m sure would be–”

“Why,” (this single syllable was a drawn-out whine, one positively stuffed with petulance and incredulity) “would I seek out the services of some other physician, some stranger, when I have such a skillful and trusted doctor as yourself right here under this roof? Why on _Earth_ , I ask you?”

I did not want to seem too eager, so I suggested, “Not having a practice at the moment, I don’t have access to a proper consulting or examination room.”

“Doctor Watson, I have seen you evaluate and diagnose in the most dire of circumstances – and I know that those that I witnessed were not the most dire that you yourself have experienced. I am confident that with no more than the contents of your medical bag, you can perform a satisfactory examination right here in this flat.”

By this point in the evening, his pomade was failing, and a few strands of hair had fallen across his forehead, making him look the slightest bit charmingly disheveled. I was eager to make him more so. “Very well.” I feigned concession, rather than admit enthusiasm. “Shall we say, eleven in the morning?”

“Who knows what tomorrow might bring,” Holmes sniffed. “There is no time like the present.”

I then made my most daring inquiry of the evening so far: “Shall we use your bed, or mine, for the examination?”

“Yours will do. I’d have to clear mine of my books. And newspapers. And clothes. And tobacco. And chemical equipment.” He thought a moment longer. “And that sword.”

“Then I suppose you should follow me,” I said, and took him upstairs to my room.

I stripped away the top blankets from the mattress, leaving only a sheet, so that the bed more closely resembled an examination table. I instructed him to sit on the edge of the bed, while I brought my chair over, and my medical bag. A typical appointment would begin with me asking my patient to describe in detail what was ailing them, any and all complaints that they had, but I did not think that was what Holmes was interested in, so I dispensed with the conversation and began the examination proper.

Holmes’ pulse was racing when I took it, which was unsurprising under the circumstances, and so I did not remark on it. I held his wrist gently in my hand for perhaps twice the amount of time I needed to, just to linger on the intimacy of the touch, for my own pleasure.

When I was done, rather than drop his hand I gently set it on his knee, then gave it a quick pat before moving on. Holding the bell of my stethoscope in my hand, I parted his tightly-wrapped dressing gown just enough to facilitate listening to his heart and lungs. This action revealed that he was wearing nothing underneath the garment, which was unusual and which set my own pulse to racing. “Breathe deeply,” I said, and while the result wasn’t the worst I’d heard in my time, his smoking habit could be easily detected through my instrument.

Setting aside the stethoscope, I then set the tips of my fingers to certain soft places around his throat, feeling his glands for signs of swelling. Here I lingered, as well, for the moment my hands found his warm, soft skin, his eyes slid shut, and he did not open them again until I had retreated. Without him observing me, I was free to take in the sight of his long dark eyelashes, his slightly open mouth, the flush across his cheekbones.

“If I could have you disrobe for me, please,” I said, and for a moment turned my attention to my medical bag, out of politeness. Holmes stood, and stepped out of his slippers, but then paused, not moving a muscle until I looked up at him. Only then did he untie the sash of his dressing gown, slowly, and then lift his hands to slip the garment from his shoulders, dropping his arms to let it fall to the floor in a soft rush of silk.

Now he was standing before me, gloriously naked. He did not move until I told him to, giving me the opportunity to scrutinise his body, lean and lithe, his flat stomach and narrow hips and strong thighs and shapely calves. Though a typical observer of Holmes might see only his slender wrists, and come to the conclusion that he was a pampered intellectual of decent breeding, above those wrists were corded forearms and swelling biceps, a body honed by devotion and discipline.

I had seen him naked before, but only in flashes between changes of towels from one room to another in the Turkish baths, and even then, I politely averted my eyes, taking with me hardly enough data to later form a mental image. In private moments of weakness, I relied far more on imagination than I ever could on memory. I now had a clear view of those particular charms I’d only had a feel of in the dark, under the blankets last winter: his member in a half-standing state in its nest of dark curls, unremarkable in length or thickness but a wholly desirable specimen, his bollocks hanging delicately beneath.

What made this sight even more exciting was the fact that I was still fully dressed, down to my waistcoat and collar. My only concession now was to roll up my sleeves, which I was in the habit of doing when seeing a patient. I cleared my throat as I did so. “Yes, well, you may lie down on the...” here I paused, not sure if I should carry on the ruse and say “examination table” or to simply call it what it was, the bed. So I merely gestured, and Holmes obeyed.

“While I perform my examination,” I said, “please let me know if you experience any pain or discomfort.”

“Yes, doctor,” Holmes said, and I hoped he continued looking at the ceiling, or at least kept his gaze on my face, and not where my excitement was more obvious. Though all of this was his doing, his forthright direction, now he was guileless and soft, and I found his playing at alluring innocence so absolutely scintillating that I was already rampant.

I began with his hands and arms, performing a thorough inspection, of both the visual and tactile varieties. Holmes’ body was riddled with scars from his numerous adventures, and I knew the origin of relatively few of them. When the silence became unbearable, I inquired, and he enlightened me as to a few: caught on a nail when sliding down a roof; unexpected bite from an otherwise friendly dog who grew tired of being patted by an overly enamoured child; fencing mishap. And so on. When I noticed his answers were brief, curt even, I ceased my inquiry, and continued in silence. Though a few of his scars had healed badly, and were dark and puckered, even the ugliest of them only served to emphasise by contrast how well-formed he was overall.

As I caressed his limbs, and the planes of his chest and belly – being so thorough as to examine the fine, soft hairs and the even pores – I contemplated why my friend might prefer that our physical intimacy be contextualised this way, under the flimsy guise of medical procedure. To me he had long seemed a man devoid of sexual desire – even when he had demonstrated no sign of attraction to women, I did not think him an invert, as he betrayed no furtive interest in the male sex either. He never looked twice at a racy novel, or leaned to eavesdrop on a bawdy conversation. If he was so inclined, though, he must have seen, if not at our first meeting, then soon after, that I was a man drawn to both sexes, and who needed no elaborate, roundabout seduction as he had taken it upon himself to employ. So what had prompted him to medicalise his quest for my attentions?

Perhaps it was the formality of the thing, the ritual of it. In my time I had seen, or at least read of, a variety of sexual expression and performance that was highly ritualised indeed, requiring all manner of props and poses, as though the participants were players staging a drama. Holmes’ own staging was of a much quieter nature, but the precision was there, the methodical discipline. And so it could be that what was so unappealing to Holmes was not shared sensual pleasure, but the crude lechery inherent in pursuing it, or even the ridiculous frivolity of it. And thus, this playacting.

As a man of science, I desired greatly to test my hypothesis, by making a lightly obscene comment, perhaps a bold but affectionate double entendre, to see if Holmes would respond to a less ritualised and more spirited approach. But then again, if my effort proved repulsive to him, I might never again be allowed access to his body or his affections. And so I held my tongue, followed his lead and trusted that so long as he desired my companionship, he would continue to navigate me along the narrow straits through which his desires coursed.

When my hands reached his abdomen, I palpated gently, not so deeply as once might when making a serious medical investigation. And admittedly, some of the places I “palpated” were not precisely standard locations.

I made a thorough survey of his prick and bollocks, checking very, very carefully for any irregularities. He breathed softly but rapidly all through it, through my manipulation of his foreskin, my firm but gentle massaging of each testicle in turn. And then I moved on, as though there were nothing exceptional or exciting about those particular organs.

His hard, muscled thighs gave very little under the pressure of my fingers, as they were not only toned but impossibly tense. I was caught up again in curiosity about the origin of his scars – in particular, a laceration that had clearly been sutured, but not by a professional.

His legs and feet I examined with a very firm hand, not desiring to tickle him, for fear that he would not like it. My thumbs dug into his soles, and he grunted, but did not protest. It was then that I decided that the rest of my examination should take on a more therapeutic air. I instructed him to turn over onto his belly, and he did so, carefully making sure that his erection would not be trapped in an uncomfortable way, but without using his hands to manipulate it.

I ran my fingers from the nape of his neck up through his hair, against the direction of growth, mussing it and prompting a pleased groan. I massaged his neck with just my thumb and first two fingers, then moved down to attend to his shoulders with all my strength. While I sought out and dealt with all the nasty knots in the muscles of his shoulders and back, he continued to give voice to his gratification.

“You know,” I said, “you could get this sort of treatment more often, if you were to for once avail yourself of the shampooers at the Turkish baths.”

“Never,” Holmes said. I had noticed that he always insisted on washing himself before proceeding to the drying room at the baths, and what he said next confirmed my suspicions about why: “I am not everyone’s friend in this city, indeed in this world, and to surrender myself in a room obscured by steam to a man who could secretly be in anyone’s employ might prove disastrous to my person.”

But then he added, and not so surprisingly, “Besides, I have never cared much to have the hands of others upon me. I exclude you from this matter of preference, Watson, as over the years you have proven yourself to be exceptional in many ways, and now I think, in every way. I know that I can trust you with all my…most personal weaknesses.”

“You honor me,” I said, then wished I hadn’t, as it sounded too servile. Then again, had I not been here these many years to give Holmes any sort of aid he might require? Had I not stitched him up, provided a sounding board for his thinking aloud, urged him to eat and sleep, been a comforting and fortifying presence in every way I could? And yet there never had been a reason before to think of me as his inferior, so why should I fret about that now? If I was obediently and tirelessly catering to Holmes’ every whim now, was he not also subjecting himself to me, making himself vulnerable to me, and trusting in my mercy?

Not that I was showing any mercy to his back, at the moment. There were moments when I worked so hard at his flesh that the noises he made seemed more from pain than pleasure, though he never gave a verbal signal that I should restrain myself. “You must forgive me for being so firm,” I told him, “but I’m only doing what’s best for you. You are hopelessly knotted up with tension, and no wonder, between your irregular and strenuous physical exertion and your inability to sit in a chair properly.”

“ _Unh_ ,” was all he could say by way of reply, as the heel of my hand ground into his trapezius.

Only then did it occur to me that things might be easier for the both of us if I were to apply some mineral oil to his skin while I rubbed it. I had a bottle in my bag, and indeed, after applying it to my hands, the going was much smoother, my hands gliding as they dug into his muscles to set them aright. Once I determined that I had done all I could for his trapezius, his rhomboid minor, his latissimus dorsi, I worked my way further down; I was not unaware of what treasures of his anatomy I was moving towards, but were I to hurry there, I would seem much less a professional administering care. So I continued at my snail’s pace, though at times my rubbing turned to caresses, especially when reapplying and spreading the silky oil.

“You are carrying so much tension here,” I murmured, lingering over the small of his back with my hands while my eyes were firmly fixed on his compact posterior. I could hardly wait to take possession of it, to handle and stroke it, but I waited until I was certain I had paid ample attention to every one of his vertebrae and to all those muscles surrounding them. Only then did I reward myself by cupping each of his buttocks in my hands and giving them a good squeeze.

Holmes clutched the pillow as I did so, and squirmed, in a new sort of way, anticipatory if I may venture to guess. It was the first indication I had seen that he might have been impatient with my pace. But it was not up to him how fast or slow I went; I was his doctor, and he would have to trust in me.

I was more generous with the oil when I reapplied it this time, and delighted in how smoothly and sweetly my grasping hands slid across his smooth, luminously pale flesh. I clutched at him and squeezed him to my heart’s content, always firmly enough that it stayed within the realm of a therapeutic massage. Each time I cupped him, my index fingers ventured a little further from their companion digits, and a little closer to each other – a little closer to the cleft of his rump.

Holmes’ breathing was noticeably heavy now, and he held the pillow to his face, to smother any whimpers which he might inadvertently emit. At last, with my thumbs, I parted him, to have a look at his most private area.

I had barely caught my first glimpse of it before my fingers instinctively reached to caress him. I spread the oil into this intimate place, and then Holmes whispered, “Do I hold a lot of tension there too, doctor?”

“I’m afraid so,” I replied. “It is carried here.” I pressed my thumb to his perineum, and rubbed it in slippery circles, while Holmes breathed, “ _Oh_ , yes, I can feel it there.”

With that thumb still firmly in place, I brushed the delicate neighboring aperture with the first finger of my other hand. How it quivered beneath my touch! I had used so much oil moments before, that it had gathered there, and it was hardly any work at all to introduce my fingertip.

“Oh, _doctor!_ ” Holmes gasped, and my prick pulsed where it was confined in my trousers to hear those words uttered in such a way.

“Please remain still while I examine you internally,” I said. “This will only take a moment.”

“Are you certain?” Holmes asked.

“Hmm, sometimes a little extra time and care is necessary,” I conceded, and slipped my finger all the way up inside.

Holmes was not so much breathing now as panting, though he made a valiant effort to keep himself still. I found his prostate with no trouble, a walnut-sized bump along the anterior wall. I needed only a moment’s feel to determine that it was healthy, but I lingered there, massaging it with all the gentleness I had refused to give his back and shoulders.

While my finger worked, I turned my head and was pleased to see Holmes’ toes flexing. I was by now sitting more or less atop him, and so was still very aware of a distinct tightness of the muscles of his thighs. He wanted to squirm and wriggle on my fingers so badly, and I thought it a shame to make him repress these movements. I withdrew my finger, only enough so that I might introduce a second beside it.

“If you absolutely must,” I said, “you may move as you feel you need to. It will be a good test of your reflexes, in any case.”

With this, I set about massaging him inside, relaxing his inner walls so that he might be amenable to hosting a different appendage, one of considerably greater girth. Such things were not always done so easily with the body, even if the mind and heart were eager.

Having been given my permission, Holmes now twisted and rolled, his back arching, his feet kicking, while I explored and prepared him with a slow, slick postillioning. He grunted and gasped into the pillow, unable to keep himself completely quiet.

When I began to feel an increase in the friction, I did not desire to remove my fingers just yet, so with my free hand I poured a drop more of the mineral oil directly into the cleft of his behind, and pushed it in as I stroked inward. It was about the time that I became confident that I could insert a third finger when Holmes said, “Doctor, do you have any other instruments with which you can administer your therapy?”

I paused, my fingers buried inside him. “Such an instrument does exist, for internal examination, but I do not have one in my possession, and in any case those on whom it is used often find it uncomfortable–”

“I mean to say,” his voice was a little sharper now, “do you, _personally_ , have any instruments? Anything more suited to massage than to examination?”

It was good to know that we were having similar ideas. “Nothing that I would apply to a _typical_ patient of mine,” I said carefully. “But you are exceptional, I believe, and a good candidate for an experimental treatment.”

“I would be delighted to contribute to the cause of medical advancement.”

I wanted badly to see Holmes’ face, and besides that, to see a sheen of perspiration spring up on his chest, to see the taut muscles of his belly quivering. “I think it would be best to apply this instrument while you are supine,” I said, and removed myself so that he might turn onto his back.

“Show me the instrument,” Holmes begged, “quickly.”

I knelt over him once more, and my eyes were upon him as I blindly unfastened my trousers, freeing my aching cockstand to the open air. I wished to strip completely down, to rid myself of all clothing, but it was in all honesty a thrill to have Holmes like this, him utterly naked and myself fully dressed – if I could still call myself so, with my prick hanging obscenely out, twitching with each beat of my heart. One day perhaps, we would lie together undressed, enjoying unrestricted access to each other, exchanging caresses and whispers. For now, I was consoled by Holmes’ dramatic response to seeing my prick. His eyes were riveted to it, his mouth open in amazement, while his chest heaved and his own erection pulsed in sympathy. He watched raptly as I applied another generous handful of the mineral oil to myself, careful not to excite myself to excess and bring on my crisis.

“Lie flat on your back please, bend your knees and place your feet here and here.” I indicated how he should arrange himself so as to give me sufficient access, without positioning him in so wanton a manner that it might embarrass him.

There was no more question, now that I was kneeing up between his spread thighs: I was about to have Holmes’ virginity for my own, to delve into him and open him up in a manner no one had been allowed before – and, God willing, in a manner no one else besides myself would ever be allowed hence. As I looked into his eyes, my hand firmly grasping my prick just behind the head, I wanted nothing more than to preserve in my memory for all time the expression of utter trust and devotion in his handsomely severe visage. Lean, muscled, and scarred, he was no maiden, but there were more kinds of fragility than porcelain skin or a delicate constitution. The strongest heart still deserves to be handled with care.

“You may feel some discomfort,” I said, “but you should not be in pain. I have done absolutely everything I can...”

“Yes, I understand, doctor.” Holmes tilted his hips, so that the tip of me touched him in the most intimate way. “Please proceed; I am so eager for your treatment.”

I pressed against him, and though he clenched, with a nudge or two I was soon making my way inside. I thought Holmes might swoon with how he was panting and whimpering.

“It may help if you bear down a little,” I suggested, and he nodded, looking down at where we were trying so hard to be joined. When I felt him open slightly, I pushed, and found myself well inside him, my shaft now embraced sweetly by the flexing heat of him.

Much ink has been spilled in the more clandestine corners of literary output about the arduousness of the first stroke in, but for myself, the first stroke outward is the most fraught. It is all the more alien to the recipient for being more familiar, and for the provider, akin to the feeling of trying to extricate oneself from wet galoshes. But I had eased the way as best I could with the oil, and made the out-stroke mercifully short, before plunging yet deeper.

My resolve to pay close attention to Holmes’ every reaction, every feeling, nearly had disastrous consequences, when the combination of sweet thrusts and his tense but willing body nearly provoked me to spend before I’d been half a minute within him. I forced myself still, begging for his patience between deep breaths, before resuming a slow rhythm, confessing, “How quickly you undo me. I must exercise the greatest care, to see that my treatment eases your tension before the procedure comes to an end.”

“I have faith in your consummate professionalism,” said Holmes, and when our eyes next met, he did the strangest thing: He laughed.

Holmes was not one given to laughter, and as our two dalliances had so far been particularly serious, even a smile from him seemed beyond hope, until just that moment. His mirth proved contagious, and I could not help but laugh as well, just a little, just until he raised his hand to my cheek and caressed it with affection, at which point I was struck dumb, my jaw going slack. He lowered his hand, then glanced downwards, as if I needed reminding about the task at hand.

“This instrument is more comfortable than your fingers,” Holmes remarked. “It provides a wonderful feeling of fullness and comfort.”

I did my best to make every stroke count, finding the perfect angle and depth to strike his prostate as often as possible. Sometimes, at the bottom of a stroke, I would rotate my hips, grinding into him, seeking out any other tender centers of pleasure I might happen upon. Occasionally, if I was moving too slow for his tastes, Holmes would lift himself to complete the stroke. To have him take me into his loving grasp so eagerly was almost more than I could stand.

I did not want to hurry things along, but a premature end would spoil all the delight that had come before it, so to hasten the peak of Holmes’ ecstasy, I paid less attention to pushing into him and more attention to manipulating his prick in the manner he found most delectable. “Like this?” I asked, using light fingertips to tug his prepuce back and forth teasingly over his glans. “Like this?” I asked again, gripping his shaft and squeezing hard. Measuring his responses carefully, I soon found that a high and tight grip, focused on the glans, sacrificing swiftness for a consistency of rhythm, was the most effective.

“Do it at the same speed,” he said. “I don’t care how fast or slow, just do both at the same speed.” I understood what he meant, and endeavoured to comply, moving my eager prick and my nimble hand in concert, ignoring the aching in my shoulder as Holmes visibly and vociferously neared his crisis. He lifted his legs high in the air, allowing me to plunge into him still more deeply. The bedsprings began to squeak beneath us. In a more quiet moment, such a noise would ruin the atmosphere, but now the obscenity of it only drove us on.

Never had I seen someone so in the thrall of complete erotic surrender as Holmes was at that moment, wracked by the exquisite preliminary tremors of ecstasy. He was so beautiful now; there was no violence in his thrashing, as he reached his crisis with me cradled betwixt his thighs, only the elegant stretch of long limbs, the graceful arc of a strong back. His cries were music to me, a wonderful harmony to accompany the melody of his surging body. His spendings in my palm were copious and almost clear, due to the prostate stimulation.

I was immensely pleased that this, his very first time, had given him such complete satisfaction – not all were so fortunate. A dear hope occurred to me at that moment, that in the future, Holmes might grow to care for this more than he cared for the cocaine bottle, and might seek out my “treatments” rather than his morocco case when boredom and despair overtook him.

As he settled back down on the mattress with a series of sighs, I said to him, “I hope you do not mind if I complete my treatment now. It will be somewhat vigorous, but I will not be long.”

“Nothing would gratify me more to see,” Holmes said, breathless and content.

My only concern that evening had been to treat my inamorato properly. Now that he was well satisfied, I felt it acceptable to take my own pleasure with a degree of selfishness. I tilted forward, forcing his legs higher in the air, and hooked my hands under his shoulders. Now we were belly-to-belly, chest-to-chest, and I pumped him to my heart’s content, my face buried in the crook of his neck. It was a matter of a mere dozen strokes or so; the very notion that I was pounding Sherlock Holmes in my own bed was a thrilling stimulation which proved irresistible.

I stilled as I began to spend inside him, and when I did so I felt the most extraordinary thing: he was clenching around me, and between our bellies I could feel him pulsing. I looked down to see that my vigorous finish had caused him to spend once again.

“And so soon,” I breathed aloud. “Remarkable. Truly extraordinary.”

I lifted myself from his body, and found him as near to insensible as I had ever seen him, his eyes strangely vacant.

“I’ve made a terrible mess of you,” I said, my gaze travelling from his disheveled hair down to his glistening belly and thighs. “Excuse me a moment while I fetch something to tidy up with.” I kissed his forehead, as he was too listless to stop me, and rolled out of the bed.

In those days, our lodgings had running water, but only at certain hours of the day – and this was not one of those hours. But in my room I had a washstand, at which I poured from a pitcher onto one half of a bath sheet. I returned to the bed with it, scrubbed Holmes and myself with the damp half, then dried us with the other. Holmes did not try to stop me from cleaning him intimately, but nor did he assist in any way by moving.

My bed was too narrow for two to sleep comfortably, but it did not even occur to me that we should not share the bed, after so tender and passionate a coupling. After undressing at last, I took up the discarded blankets from the floor and squeezed in beside him, flinging the blankets over us.

“Watson,” Holmes said at last.

“Yes?”

“Your treatment was very intense, but I believe effective. I feel depleted, yet relaxed, and free of tension.”

“I think that tomorrow, after a good night’s rest, you will find yourself more invigorated.”

“That’s good to know,” Holmes said. “In the future, I will be more diligent about seeing my physician, and not neglecting my health so. It really does have its benefits.”

It was then that he turned on to his side, so that he was not only facing me, but nestling into my arms. This was perhaps the greatest thrill of all: that he was amenable to this more conventional form of affection. I gathered him up and held him close, and became so entranced by the sound and feel of his warm breaths on my neck becoming slower and more even that I was soon taken by the sweetest slumber, myself.

**Author's Note:**

> berlynn-wohl on Tumblr and Pillowfort for more of this sort of nonsense. I also used to be something of a BBC!Johnlock fic writer, and you can check those out here on AO3. :)


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